


you don't always have to be on top

by chasing_the_sterek



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anticonvulsants, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I've had a bad few days and I took it out on Foggy I'm sorry, M/M, Matt is patient and loving, Medication, Photosensitive Epilepsy, Sensory Overload, Teasing, forgive me if this is awful but my brain isn't working properly :/, it's the side effects that get you, most of this is fluff I promise it's not quite as depressing at it sounds, there's some irrational anger but Foggy deals with it without yelling, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24636301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: "Foggy?" Matt says through the glass.Foggy lets his arm flop down. Doesn't open his eyes. He wishes he'd died three minutes ago, when the light was barbequing his brain. At least then he'd get to watch Matt try the sun for first-degree murder.///Levetiracetam is a bitch sometimes.Foggy particularly likes the days when everything is too overwhelming for him to function.
Relationships: Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 97





	you don't always have to be on top

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, I gave Foggy photosensitive epilepsy. This is a medical condition where flashing lights will cause a seizure.
> 
> I based Foggy's epilepsy off of mine (sorry, Foggy). I take an anticonvulsant called Levitiracetam, which slows my brain's reaction times down to prevent seizures. I take two 1000mg tablets every day, one in the morning and one in the evening, and they're huge and sometimes have, frankly, horrible side effects.
> 
> One of mine is amnesia, which is sadly not as cinematic as movies suggest. (Instead, imagine being in class, but forgetting what you were going to write every time you look down at your page. That is me. I go through a lot of post-it notes.)
> 
> The main side effects that I focus on in this fic are irritability and noise sensitivity. Levitiracetam causes uncharacteristic, fierce bursts of anger, which combined with the sensory overload from noises makes for a pretty miserable day - you have to wait it out, so you're mostly just hoping to fall asleep or disassociate.
> 
> Epilepsy is a funny thing - you and your doctors are never sure if the medication actually works or not. Until I have a seizure, I'm basically living off of a "probably", and will be for the rest of my life. There isn't a cure. It's the kind of condition that's pretty serious, but only when it comes up unexpectedly.
> 
> Thanks for clicking on this!

Everything is too _loud._

There's construction on the street outside. One of his neighbours is screaming with laughter, which would usually be fine, but Foggy can't deal with it, he's too strung out - he has a window open to try and soothe his headache with fresh air, but he can just hear more noise, people talking, the paperwork he'd smuggled home fluttering in the breeze, the fridge gurgling. His dishwasher is making this mechanical swishy noise that he can't seem to escape, no matter what he puts between it and his head.

Foggy manages to pull himself over to the window and yank it closed. The light shafts in and pierces through his eyes and directly into his brain, slicing it in two, killing him instantly.

"I wish," he groans.

Instead, he's collapsed under his window, eyes scrunched shut with an arm flung over as an extra precaution. Somewhere in his building, the man is screeching again, incoherent with laughter. Foggy gets an uncharacteristic swell of rage. How is he so loud? How is he not _hurting?_

He grits his teeth and tightens his arm, dragging his attention away. He's allowed to laugh, for God's sake, Foggy doesn't have a monopoly on enjoying life. He isn't Foggy Nelson, King of the Building. He has no reason to be this angry.

He breathes in. Out.

"You're fine," he tells himself sternly. "Just get up. Stop being an idiot."

The dishwasher cycles. Someone shouts outside, and the jackhammer starts up again. His fridge makes a bubbly noise and his sink tap drips a few times because the plumbing is broken and the landlord is too busy to come over and fix it and Foggy is going to _die,_ he is not fine -

Someone taps on his window.

Foggy doesn't move. Maybe if he doesn't move they'll go away, like in Jurassic Park.

They tap again.

His head throbs. He's an idiot. They're tapping on the window he's crumpled underneath, which either means that they can see him or they're _Matt,_ which is way worse because Foggy actually cares about what Matt thinks of him. Not like a burglar, who's pretty much free to think whatever they like of Foggy's living situation so long as they don't touch the big first aid kit of illegal morphine he keeps for when Matt gets injured.

"Foggy?" Matt says through the glass.

Foggy lets his arm flop down. Doesn't open his eyes. He wishes he'd died three minutes ago, when the light was barbequing his brain. At least then he'd get to watch Matt try the sun for first-degree murder.

"I'm not here," he mutters.

He'd honestly be surprised that that came out vaguely comprehensible, but Foggy has always had an impressive lack of self-preservation.

"How did you say that, then?" Matt challenges, starting to pick the window open.

Foggy groans. The clicks and slides are too much to bear already, and he's only _thinking_ about them. Matt is going to kill him instead of the sun. Matt will have to try himself for first-degree murder. That'll be much less fun. Foggy doesn't want to have to haunt someone who put themselves in prison.

Matt roomed with him for more than long enough to know what this is. He's been there through every medicine adjustment, every side-effect: if Foggy didn't know better, he'd say that Matt almost knows more about his epilepsy than he does.

Foggy isn't sure he knows much of anything right now. His head is a mess.

He slits his eyes open. Matt's wearing red boots, like an idiot.

"Daylight," he chides, still not moving.

"Believe it or not, it's more inconspicuous than a blind lawyer," Matt says.

That means he took the rooftops here. Foggy frowns. "I'm _fine."_

"Yes," Matt says mildly. "I heard you trying to convince yourself of that on the way over. C'mon, up you get."

Foggy tries to help Matt haul him up, but he thinks he only makes it worse. His head is still a throbbing, horrible jumble, but with Matt here the noise is easier to deal with. It's all just Matt's voice and smell and warmth, hovering close to Foggy's skin in places and touching in others. He feels like he's wrapped up in a blanket in front of a fire.

"There we go," Matt says, apparently listening to his heartbeat like a creep. "In bed with you."

Irritation flares again. Matt waits for him wrestle it back before he continues.

"Sorry," Foggy murmurs, sheepish.

"Don't be." It always astounds Foggy how Matt can be so charming with everything that moves, but so adorably awkward when they're alone. "You're doing good."

There's a gentle shove to his shoulders. Foggy lands on his bed, blinking, then pokes Matt accusingly in the thigh.

"I need to work."

"You shouldn't have work here," Matt protests. "Why do you have work here?"

"Uh." _Because I'm building hypothetical defence cases in case you get caught as Daredevil, and also I took on a pro bono case last week and didn't tell you because you're already going full Catholic guilt about our finances._ No, he can't say that. Foggy plays stupid. "I don't work."

Silence.

Matt snorts. "I'm not even going to address that. Have you eaten today?"

Foggy has to think about it, which doesn't bode well. "I think I had a slice of toast at three?"

"In the _morning?"_

Foggy lets his silence grow pointed.

Matt's eyebrows lift above his glasses. His ears colour. "Oh."

Last night, Daredevil de-escalated a hostage situation. The news had already been there in their vans, the most popular newscasters ousted from their beds to cover the big scoop and standing around in each others' shots looking worn.

Foggy had already been up, TV on in the background just in case. His toast had gone cold and faintly soggy by the time Matt had got everyone else out safe. The camera had just managed to follow a dark splash of red as it crept away, back into the shadows of the rooftops.

"I was fine," Matt protests weakly.

"You were limping."

"The Hungarian mafia like to go for the backs of knees," is the excuse. Matt flops down to sit next to him on the bed. "It barely even bruised."

"How would you know," Foggy grumbles, eyeing Matt's trousers as he laughs. "Want me to check?"

"Why, Mister Nelson," Matt grins, eyes crinkling and voice warm, "are you asking to see my lovely ankles?"

Foggy laughs, harder than he maybe should. "I'm asking to see more than your ankles, Mister Murdock," he giggles.

Matt smiles in his direction, broad and genuine. Foggy flops down onto the bed and sighs once - a deep kind of sigh, satisfying.

"You're not laying the right way," Matt teases, attempting to poke him around. "You can't sleep sideways, it's against the law."

"Guess I'm a rulebreaker," Foggy says cheerfully.

"Did you take your tablet yet?"

"Not yet."

Matt doesn't bother tapping his way out of the room, just steps confidently out and down the hall to the kitchen. Foggy doesn't think he's ever shown Matt where the box is in this apartment, but he's back quickly, the white pill rolling around in his palm and a glass of water in the other hand.

"Thank god for Braille," Matt says. "You had it next to a box of stock cubes."

Foggy wrinkles his nose. "Well, that would have been nasty."

He reaches out. Matt holds still and lets Foggy scoop up the tablet. Their fingers brush on the glass. The pill's big, but Foggy's been taking it since he was eighteen and he's an old hat by now.

He lays back. Matt leans over him, dark red Daredevil suit and all, and starts fussing with the covers. Foggy snorts a laugh and bats his hands away.

"I can't believe you're the same man who rescued hostages last night," he teases. "You're a mother hen." He softens. "Go back to work, Matt. I'll be in later."

"Tomorrow," Matt argues. "If you've been bringing work home then you need a break."

"Alright." Home? "Thanks, Matty."

"Don't worry about it, Fogs." He hesitates by the bedroom door, suddenly looking very lost. "Promise me you'll call next time it gets that bad?"

"Sure." He won't. Matt has enough on his plate. "Stay safe."

"You too."

Foggy listens to the window in the sitting room slide back open, the fire escape rattling. His neighbour laughs again, a high-pitched teakettle wheeze this time. He grins at his ceiling.

Outside, the jackhammer valiantly attempts to start several times. The construction workers hoot with laughter, starting to rip into one about being unable to press a simple button. Their voice rises above the others', loud and defensive: there's a series of _oooh_ s at their retaliating insult.

Foggy sleeps, and dreams of Matt saying _"if you're bringing work home"_ over and over, eyes warm behind his glasses.


End file.
